Greenbriar Manor

Anywhere But Home

About a mile outside of Woodstock was a house high up on a hill. It was dilapidated and falling in on itself but every so often you could hear the faint notes of piano keys rustled by animals or a phantom autumn wind. It was once owned by a family of prominence and taste. The last owner died alone and instead of selling the house to someone who would renovate it. The will stipulated that it stay forever in its current condition and that no one attend to the land except family. None of whom wanted the headache or responsibility of minding the ghosts of a long-dead eclectic aunt. So Whelton Acres lay empty and forgotten or so the Greenes thought. 

One Fall day, a couple of vagrant college kids named Vallen and Rosie looking for some shelter from the wind wandered into the part of the estate that was still standing strong (A guest house) and determined that it would become their home. What they did not know was that some secrets do not die easily, and some souls do not rest. From the very first night that they stayed there the abysmal heat came from the kitchen. Then, there was a small clinking noise like things being moved or a metronome, and if the wind got up you could hear this haunting melody on the abandoned piano that could not be reached due to foundation issues in the main house itself. They knew that it was illegal to squat but they also really wanted to own this tiny house. Even if it was on a creepy abandoned cattle farm. They would make it homey and hoped to have a baby someday to grow up here wild and free. Unlike the suffocating environments of trailers and hotels, they have been raised in. They saw potential but they did not know the place. It would never be a welcome sight to children. 

Vallen woke up the next morning to Rosie strumming cords on his old six string guitar. The music sounded haunting and he could vaguely hear her singing a line or two. 

"The willow tree is leaning and it brings no healing this place does not shelter or guide. Youth was fleeting once upon a meeting then the melody brings only sighs. She wants to be old and sit with a boy in the meadow. She wants to wander hills to the green places beyond. She can neither run or wander for her soul is not yonder she is waiting here for someone to take her home. Some love some dawn she finds only that she has lost far more than she won."

He asked her what the weird song was about and she shook her head like waking up from a dream. In a quiet almost childlike voice she whispered, "No one ever took me home at all" He thought she was reacting from a long gone memory and held her close as she cried deep sobs into his shoulder. But just beyond the house was a silhouette of a girl in a green dress with eyes the color of emeralds with a sneer across her face. Had someone finally heard her plea to go home? Back to the Manor she was born in. It had been years since she had felt anyone else here except the fear of the hateful aunt who was still consumed with greed. She tried to forgive and move on but something would not let her. 

Somehow, the other soul here had moved from this place and found lodging elsewhere it had started with a distant relative driving here to check the mail one summer day. Something about wanting to make sure it was all gone.  A tiny girl with the same dark hair as her and a blonde named Brittney crawled inside that old willow stump and hid from her mother for over an hour. Ruth had run around scared to death until she had no voice. Finally they found each other. Their reunion and abrupt exit had unlocked something within the other spirit. Then, the old blonde woman   had been able to leave for longer and longer times as long as she stood in the hollow of the tree first, She watched on as the seasons turned and she never came back at all. Maybe she would go home soon, On the edge of the steps to the main house she saw a tiny flower coming through the dirt in the dry area where she lay. It was a purple Mable by itself. She would wait to watch them bloom and hope that someday someone would return to fetch her.

The old woman with the yellow flaxen wig that looked like old hay waited until Brittney's mother left for Nova Scotia to begin making the house a replica of the farm she left behind on the inside. Newspapers piled outside until one day a preconscious little girl holding a red mabel flower knocked on the door looking for her friend. When the door opened by itself she wandered in. When she saw the toys and dust she did not run at all. She laughed. She picked up the tea sets and asked if anyone was home. She made tea cookies in her imagination and spent weeks waiting for her friend. One day Vera opened the door. The girl who looked much like she did as a child smiled and asked to come in. She did however call her grandma. Which simply would not do. So she begun telling the child stories of a Vermont horse farm and grand pianos and love lost and drank tea that tasted awful and she thought of Bridgette. Everyday she remembered watching Brittney's grandma driving off to the airport with the tiny little girl who helped her leave the farm. She hoped that Mabel would bring her cousin to drink tea so she might return with  someone  from the family home long ago.